


A Guest of the Crown

by Wellamyblake



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Brienne seeing Jaime not looking like a hobo for the first time, Canon, F/M, Ficlet, Oneshot, canonverse, filling in gaps we deserved to see in s4, spoiler: she is SHOOKE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 04:23:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18843565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wellamyblake/pseuds/Wellamyblake
Summary: He dropped the sheet and turned toward her then, clearly expecting a response, but she was struck momentarily speechless by the man before her.He was so clean he might have just stepped out of a bath, his long, brooched leather jacket simple but clearly well made, and for a nobleman. His hair was shorn short and was near-gold again, spraying above his forehead in an almost boyish fashion.And he was clean-shaven, revealing a jawline sharp enough to cut glass she had never glimpsed before. Even the barely-healed scars cutting into his cheekbones framed his face in their own sort of appealing, angular way.





	A Guest of the Crown

**Author's Note:**

> So someone mentioned that they wish we'd seen the first time Brienne saw Jaime looking like THAT ("that" being his season 4 Look^tm) and it turned into this (thirst fic). Basically a mini fill-in-the-blank scene between when Brienne and Jaime arrive in KL in 3x10 and when they're arguing (like a married couple) in 4x01, because we know they spent loads of time together in KL between seasons. 
> 
> The scene begins and ends RIGHT before Jaime and Brienne's first scene in season 4. The youtube link for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfeoeSLxpcM
> 
> Also yes, I know the transition to and from the flashback is awkward. deal with it

Kings Landing is nothing like Tarth.

It has been many years since Brienne has seen the Sapphire Isle, but when she closes her eyes she can still picture the ever-green cliffs, the pristine water. It’s why she’s spent most of her stay in Kings Landing as close to the water as possible.

Today she stands at an outcropping just above where Sansa Stark kneels angelically posed in prayer to the gods. Brienne turns her gaze back towards the city as she awaits the familiar sound of Ser Jaime’s steps.

Kings Landing is spread out before her, a dirty, stinking pit whose occupants seem utterly unconcerned about the filth they live amongst.

Not that Brienne minds filth. As a soldier, she’s weathered her fair share of it, and the trek with Ser Jaime to Kings Landing had involved plenty of mud, blood, and shit to go around. By the time they’d arrived at the city gates she could almost smell herself, and she could certainly smell him.

She remembers how they separated, near wordlessly, once they were back in his territory. She found the nearest inn for the night and he headed straight for the Red Keep. She assumed she would have to be the one to seek him out eventually, to threaten him, perhaps, into keeping his oath.

To her surprise, it had been he who found her. She falls into the memory...

_[three weeks earlier]_

It was her third day in the shabby inn located just three streets past the gate of the city, far enough from the Red Keep that the towers were a bit hazy on the skyline.

Brienne was just returning from supper, having resolved to set out for the Red Keep the next day, when she noticed the door to her room was slightly ajar. She heard awkward shuffling from behind it; clearly the person inside wasn’t even making an attempt at stealth.

As she moved to quietly open the door - so as to take the intruder unawares - she heard a familiar disgusted voice ring out, “I don’t know how you live in this filth.”

Her shoulders sagged in both relief and annoyance at Jaime’s voice as the door swung open and revealed the knight’s leather-clad back.

He hadn’t even turned at her entrance, instead standing with his back to her daintily holding the corner of a mildewed sheet as if it might bite him.

“I mean, surely you could have found better accommodation than this.”

He dropped the sheet and turned toward her then, clearly expecting a response, but she was struck momentarily speechless by the man before her.

He was so clean he might have just stepped out of a bath, his long, brooched leather jacket simple but clearly well made, and for a nobleman. His hair was shorn short and was near-gold again, spraying above his forehead in an almost boyish fashion.

And he was clean-shaven, revealing a jawline sharp enough to cut glass she had never glimpsed before. Even the barely-healed scars cutting into his cheekbones framed his face in their own sort of appealing, angular way.

He truly looked the part of the golden lion he was famed to be, almost glowing as the evening sun poured in through the window and caught the lighter strands of his hair. He was utterly alien to the Jaime that Brienne knew, and yet for some reason she felt her heart skip a beat in her chest.

When Jaime cocked his head in that familiar fashion, as if to say _Well?_ , she realized that she’d been silent a moment too long.

“It suits me fine,” she answered in a way she was sure seemed doltish. Before he could respond she blurted, “Why did you come here?”

For a moment he looked taken off guard, but his expression quickly righted itself with the faux-haughty judgment she had become so used to. She supposed it was a bit of a stupid question, considering that she was the one who needed something from him.

“To find you, of course,” he said, very nearly pulling off a casual tone. He looked away, back towards the ratty bed. She suddenly became viscerally aware that she was alone in a bedroom with a man - with Ser Jaime Lannister - and was inexplicably glad she hadn’t shut the door behind her.

“This is no place for a lady who is a guest of the crown to stay.” She knew he must be mocking her with the title “Lady,” but his sentiment seemed serious.

_Is that what I am? A guest of the crown?_ She thought. Before she could ask, he continued.

“Come on, gather your thi-“ he glanced around the room, apparently noting her utter lack of possessions, before his lively eyes finally alighted on her armor in the corner. “Armor, and I’ll show you to your chambers in the Red Keep.”

“The Red Keep?” She asked, incredulous. Surely he didn’t mean to keep her right under the nose of Tywin Lannister, and of his sister the Queen. “Won’t the King…?”

He shook his head, cutting her off and already moving to hand her her armor.

“No one in my family will harm a hair on your head,” he said. It sounded less like a statement of fact and more like something he intended to enforce himself. It did nothing to alleviate her apprehension. Jaime pushed on.

“Besides, you’re the one who returned the Kingslayer to King’s Landing. If you were a man, my father would probably have you Knighted.” He paused in his one-handed shuffling of her armor and looked up to meet her eyes, seeming to sense he’d said something wrong.

Brienne, too used to the casual cruelties of the world to dwell on the remark, fixed Jaime’s gaze with hers.

“I don’t need a room in the Red Keep, because I am not staying here,” she declared. “All I need is for you to bring me Arya and Sansa so I can get them to safety.”

She knew not yet where exactly “safety” was. She and Jaime had heard news of the Red Wedding on the road south, so Catelyn was no longer an option. Brienne felt again a pang for the strange, strong woman she had sworn herself to in the woods.

Jaime was still struggling with her armor, clearly aiming to help her put it on so as to get her moving. The gesture struck her as horrifyingly intimate- she shoved aside the shiver that ran through her at the thought - so instead she grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at her.

He sighed, dropping the armor and finally turning to meet her gaze full on.

Despite his utterly changed face, his eyes were comfortingly familiar. As they bored into hers, she felt almost as if she could be in the fire lit room at Harrenhal again.

Jaime looked fully serious for the first time since she had walked in on him.

“Yes. Well, about the Stark girls, there’s been a complication....”

 

Brienne is startled out of her memory by the appearance of a man from around the hedge separating the overlook from the royal garden.

It still takes Brienne a moment to recognize him as Jaime.

It’s isn’t just his looks that are different, Brienne thinks, though they did cause a truly annoying amount of women to follow him around the Keep - it’s why Brienne acquiesced when Jaime said he preferred to meet on the cliff side than in the gardens.

“Fewer eyes,” he’d said, though she knows he was likely referencing something more sinister than the ladies whose gazes longingly tracked his steps.

No, she thinks, there is something more than his handsomely cut hair and the lack of mud on his dignified features that makes him seem different in Kings Landing. A kind of gilded confidence, worn like a garment, but at odds with a restlessness she hadn’t noticed while they were on the road.

Despite the default, slight smirk on his face as he approaches her, she can tell he is happy to see her. The thought surprises her - she didn’t realize she had grown so adept at reading him, so sure of his regard, in just these few short weeks.

And yet she finds herself glad to see him as well. She knows that feeling will fade as soon as he opens his smart mouth, but he is the only person at Court ( _the only person anywhere_ , says a small voice in her head) that she feels she can be honest with. She’s seen the honor in him, and knows he will keep her confidence.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” He greets her in that ironic tone of his. He steps beside her at the railing overlooking the water, mirroring her two-handed pose against the low wall with his one good hand.

“I suppose it is,” she admits. When she pauses he turns to look at her, and follows her pointed glance downward until he too sees Sansa in the garden. She can see his shoulders rise and fall in a long-suffering sigh as he understands why exactly it was this spot she’d suggested to meet.

“There she is,” she says, rather obviously.

“Yes, there she is. And?”

“You made a promise.”


End file.
